


turn to dust or to gold

by synchronicities



Series: young justice pacrim au [2]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Interviews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 08:38:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4013008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synchronicities/pseuds/synchronicities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>GOLDEN BOY: The Life and Times of Gotham's Finest, an autobiography by Gotham's very own Dick Grayson about his experiences during the Kaiju War, hits bookshelves next week.</p>
<p>He's here to talk about what's in it and what didn't make it in in this exclusive tell-all interview.</p>
<p>(Sequel to "pull the blackout curtains down," highly recommended you read that one first.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	turn to dust or to gold

**GOLDEN BOY: The Life and Times of Gotham’s Finest**

**AN EXCLUSIVE, TELL-ALL INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD GRAYSON**

“THE FIRST THING you have to know is that I didn’t decide that title, Helena did,” is the first thing Richard Grayson says to me. Tall, handsome, dressed in a crisply tailored, well-fitting blazer, donning a charming smile, and relaxing carelessly on the duvet in his large-windowed loft, Grayson looks every bit the playboy billionaire’s ward the public used to know him for. But there are hints here and there that this is a persona he actively cultivates now, after resurfacing seemingly permanently – the hard crease of his mouth, the dorky T-shirt under the blazer, the comic book posters on the walls.

He’s referring, of course, to Ms. Helena Bertinelli[1], rather (in)famous for her flair for the dramatic.  But for all his facades and dismissive veneers, Grayson seems genuinely excited about his autobiography, which hits bookshelves on Sunday.

“So,” he says, once introductions are out of the way. “Why don’t we get started? Pull your punches. Show me what you’ve got.”

* * *

 

THE FIRST LINE of Golden Boy is this – “ _I grew up in a circus. It’s always been about catching people when they fall._ ”

Grayson is surprised when I choose to begin with that. I clarify that I’m not here to criticize or start a workshop, but rather to question why he chose that as a starting point. He looks confused. “I’ve always been open about my background,” he says. “From the very beginning, I was part of something amazing. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if not for the stuff I learned in the early years.”

For those not in the know, less than thirty years ago the surname “Grayson” meant something else entirely – one of the most prestigious family of acrobats in the world. They worked with Haley’s Circus before the Kaiju attacked Keystone during a performance. Then-Lieutenant Bruce Wayne was one of the few survivors among the audience, and practically adopted the orphaned Richard (now preferring “Dick”) on sight. (Going back a couple more decades, Wayne himself rather famously lost his parents as a child to an unfortunate mugging.)

“The shift from a circus lifestyle to a military brat one? Definitely hard,” says Grayson, though he’s smiling. “Alfred [Pennyworth] [2] took care of me way more than Bruce did. He was gone a lot, always on tours – but I could tell he was a really strong person. It was all very inspiring.” He tells me more about life with Bruce Wayne – the press, the chauffeurs, the loneliness in the big empty manor.

“What made you join up with the PPDC?” I ask.

“It was cool, and I was a pretty lonely kid,” he says sharply, not missing a beat. “The end of the world, I wasn’t about to sit around and do nothing. And Bruce. I admired him a lot. He didn’t want me to, of course – said he didn’t want me to end up too much like him, that I had to ‘channel my anger’” – air quotation marks – “some other way. But I’d spent so long thinking about it and it seemed like the natural course of action. I mean–” his face turns serious. “It’s always been about making sure everyone else still had families to go home to. I tried my best.”

I decide to power through the decidedly somber turn this conversation has taken. “Not all of our readers will be able to pick up your book when it comes out, so can you share a few highlights of your time in the Academy?”

Grayson perks up noticeably, and there’s a newfound sparkle in his eyes. It’s clear he looks back on the Academy years fondly. “Where to begin?” he laughs, further proving this. “Well, my freshman roommate was four years older than I was and _super_ mean. We laugh about it now, but the truth is we said barely five words to each other the first couple of weeks. I cried after three days because I felt _so_ lonely.”

A bit of prodding later, I learn that said roommate was none other than Roy Harper [3]. I mention that the two of them are very public about their friendship now, but Grayson shrugs. “Things are different when you’re a teenager.” There’s been a war and a seafloor battle between, too. “In hindsight, Bruce and Oliver [Queen] [4] were close; we would’ve become friends anyway.”

“Before Bruce made Marshall, he used to pilot with Diana [Prince] and Clark [Kent],” he says. I nod. Trinity will forever be a legend, I think. “That’s how I met Diana – is it okay if I go by first names, by the way? – and her younger sister, Donna [Troy] [5]. She was in it for the same reason as me, I think, and she was in my year. We got along like a house on fire and the only reason Roy talked to me at all was ‘cause he thought she was pretty.”

“Did you ever date?” I ask teasingly.

Grayson looks amused at this. “ _God_ , not you too! Loved her like a sister, still do. Besides, that would have broken Jason [Todd]’s [6] heart. He had the biggest crush on her. He’s going to kill me when he reads this, but please keep it in.”

“I was _sad_ when Donna quit,” he continues. “We had one of those friendships where, like, you didn’t have to test it to know you were compatible. I thought if I would partner with anyone it would be her.”

“But you still remain in touch?”

“Of course, of course.” Grayson is increasingly seeming like the type of person who would be loath to let a friendship fall apart. “We started having brunch again recently. Babs makes fun of me for it. Besides,” he adds. “I met Wally [West] [7] through her.”

I’m floored for a second, although I try my best not to let it show. He’s ex-military, though, and pretty obviously picks up on that, his smile understanding. “You’ll notice I wrote a lot about him,” he continues.

 “You did,” I says sympathetically. “It’s very obvious how highly you view him.”

Crows’ feet show themselves around Grayson’s eyes when he smiles, but it’s sad. “I can’t _not_ , in a way,” he says. “He was my best friend. We had a lot of common ground, you see – Bruce Wayne was _my_ dad, and Barry Allen was _his_ uncle, and we were two years apart and loved playing pranks on people, and what do you know?” He does a little showbiz-hands gesture. “Compatibility right from the start.”

“Your handshake was _insane_ ,” I note. “You guys were the standard in the community.”

There _is_ a lot of material on Wallace West in _Golden Boy_. Grayson details everything from their first meeting (he and Troy having nowhere else to sit in the cafeteria and seeing him eating alone; she had spilled apple juice on him), to finding out they were drift-compatible (they’d figured out everything the psych analyst, one Mr. John Jones [7], had to tell them the second he opened his mouth) to their first Kaiju kill (one might remember Cadmus, famous for seemingly making copies of itself). Grayson talks animatedly about their friend group, which also included people who would go on to make waves in the Kaiju history books: notable names include Harper, Connor Kent [8], Artemis Crock [9], Zatanna Zatara [10], Jackson Hyde [11], and Megan Morse [12].  

I even manage to get in a few questions about his personal life, all of which he answers with grace and good humor. “Zatanna and I had a thing,” he admits right off the bat. “But we broke it off pretty quick. There were a few other girls over the years, some with the PPDC, some not–” Grayson’s years-long, high-profile affair with heiress Kory Anders comes to mind – “But nothing ever came out of it. The Jaegers came first. The missions always came first.”

Conspicuously absent from the book, however, are the details of March 23, 2025. Grayson mentions it in passing before skipping the funeral entirely. When I bring it up, Grayson nods, like he’s been expecting the question. “Believe me, I tried,” he says. He runs a hand through his hair. “But nothing I wrote could ever do it justice. There wasn’t any balancing – there was a graduation that day, and there was a _speech_ , and then suddenly…” He trails off, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor, like there are thoughts he can’t form into words. “Everyone knows what happened that day. The whole thing was very public. I thought, might as well focus on the stuff people didn’t know about.”

“Would it be weird if I ask how it was to pilot solo?”

“No, no. Of course not. Everyone wonders that. Thing is, I can’t really tell you much. A lot of it was the adrenaline working overtime to make sure my brain could take the load. I honestly don’t remember much of it.

“I wasn’t myself for a bit after that,” he adds. “Couldn’t treat people exactly right. Wally’s nephew, Bart [13]? Looked so much like him. It took me a while before I could even look him in the eye.” He smiles a bit. “Never got around to apologizing for it.”

“I’m sure he understood,” I pipe up.

“Yeah.” Grayson’s fingers tap a rhythm on his knee. “It was his graduation, too.”

There’s such a stagnant pause that briefly, I wonder if he’s about to call it a day and end it. But he continues. “Staying strong after that was…hard. Wally terminated the Drift before – he died, and I thank him for that every day. But it’s still difficult, sometimes, to wake up and feel like a part of your brain is missing. I tended to close in on myself a lot. I think that was hard on Barbara when we started Drifting.”

I resist the urge to sigh in relief; the conversation’s turned to more familiar territory. “You mention her a few times in the beginning,” I point out.

There’s that relaxed smile again. “She’s my oldest – and for a while, my _only_ , really – friend. I’ve known her since we were kids. We had the kind of Drift that’s built up, y’know? Years and years of trust and friendship.”

“You mention that you were sure you’d be compatible ever since she entered the Jaeger Program two years after you. Has anything about that changed?”

“I was very sure,” he says lightly. “But Wally and I were practically electric, and Jason had the best scores with her, so it was only logical. Our charms were needed elsewhere, clearly.” He leans forward then, a knowing smile on his face. “Did you know – after Wally, the Jaegers started failing, and they clearly needed every pilot they had. It was logical that they’d test me with Babs, but even then I didn’t want to Drift with anyone except her. She’s been taking care of me since we were – what, nine?” He smiles again, briefly and fondly. “I’m sure if we tried Drifting again now, it would be just as strong – nah, stronger.”

I gulp. This, I know, is the perfect segue into my next question. He looks at me like he’s expecting me to ask it.

“How was it after Scarab’s first mission?”

“Difficult,” he says after a few beats. “I’m not going to speak for her experience. But I can say she struggled far more than I did. I lost a partner. She lost more than that.” The picture of Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair had blazed headlines, Scarabs’ pilots’ scared, ashamed faces, too. Dick’s ashen face and ruined Jaeger had graced many a tabloid afterward – _what kind of person loses two copilots so quickly?_

He pauses, biting his lip. His hair is looking more and more tousled the more he runs his hair through it. “We couldn’t look at each other for the first few days,” he says. “There was so much baggage there.  I got nightmares about never walking again. But Babs fought harder than anyone I’ve ever known, and she became basically the best mission control ever. And I told myself – if she could bounce back, so could I. Pitfall was fast approaching, too.”

“Did you have a hand in planning Operation Pitfall?”

His jaw works. “Nope. I wrote about it in the book. That was all the highers-up – Clark, Diana, Bruce, Dinah [Lance] [14], Nathaniel [Adams] [15], the works.” He plays with his fingers a little. “I thought it was a terrible, dangerous plan. But it had to be done.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “It did what it was supposed to do. It closed the Breach, let us rebuild. How can I fault it if–” His jaw works again. “One casualty for the sake of everyone else.”

“Jaime Reyes [16]?”

 “I spent a very long time feeling guilty about that,” he finally admits, not meeting my eyes for the first time in this interview. “It’s been years, but sometimes I still think– maybe if I’d gone instead, with someone else, Jaime would’ve–I don’t know. He was a good guy. He deserved better. But he was someone I couldn’t catch.” The entire world had seen that moment, too – when the first pod had popped up after Scarab had blown up. Grayson had jumped in immediately, performed first aid – and the two of them had waited in vain for a second pod that never followed.

“Your book doesn’t mention the reason you and Ms. Gordon went underground after Pitfall,” I point out quietly. “Was that it?”

“Right on the money.” Again, that sad smile. “It’s not as dramatic as you make it sound. We’d lay low, travel a bit, email Tim [Drake] [17] and Jason and Bruce to say we were all right. Pretty idyllic, if you ask me.”

“How did you guys contribute to the rebuilding effort?”

He laughs, but it’s bitter. “ _Barely_. Ask any of the pilots, they’ll tell you the same thing. Hell, ask Garfield [Logan] [18] or Karen [19] or any of the J-Tech people. We made a couple of speeches, tweeted a bunch of supportive stuff, but ultimately it wasn’t our job anymore. Everyone was tired.”

At that point I want to hug him. “Do you still feel the same way now?”

The sides of his mouth turn upwards a little. He pauses. “We’ve had two years to cope with it, and even still I don’t think it’s ever going to go away.” Another pause. “But still, that’s two years of convincing yourself that everything’s going to be okay. It’s better now.”

“What are you up to now?”

“After this whole book thing is up?” He grins. “Babs and I are moving back to Wayne Manor. Grace the gang with our presence for a while. And then – Haly’s Circus is going on the market.”

“So like going full circle.”

He smiles, wide and happy and real, and I know I’ve hit the nail on the head.

* * *

 

“LAST QUESTION?” I say, hopefully.

He grins again, friendly and familiar. “Shoot.”

“Why’d you write the book?”

“Ah.” Grayson crosses his arms and leans on the doorway. “Well, like I said earlier – I wanted people to know about the parts that weren’t so heavily publicized. But at the same time, I didn’t want people to forget. We made history, y’know? Everything is going to be skewed when the books come out. In a couple decades, it’s going to be skewed even for the people who were _there_. I know not everyone involved is going to view things the same way I did. But, y’know, it’s something.”

Briefly, I glance at the dedication.

_To Bruce, Clark, and Diana – for being parents, teachers, healers._

_To Wally – for being a brother._

_To Barbara – for being everything._

_To everyone – for being warriors, in one way or another._

He sees me looking at it. “Some of us aren’t even going to be around in a couple decades,” he says softly. “I want Cassie [Sandsmark] [20] to read it, y’know?”

“I’ll make sure she does,” I tell him. “Wait. Can I ask _one_ last question?”

“You’re really pushing it,” he says, deadpan, but he’s smiling again. “But go ahead.”

“You said you didn’t choose the book’s title,” I say, thumbing the embossed cover. _Golden Boy_. “But why did you agree to title it that?”

He laughs a bit. “I was so sleepy and I didn’t want to argue with Helena,” he jokes. But his face turns serious. “Never once did I feel like it,” he says, looking me straight in the eye. “ _Golden Boy_ – I think I made it very clear in the narration that it was the farthest thing… I intended for it to be ironic. You don’t save the world and come out feeling – well, you feel good, maybe. Tired, but fulfilled, sure. But golden? Never.”

I wish I could say there was some definite, dramatic interview-ending moment. But what happens is just I shake his hand before I take the elevator down and out the building. My last thought of Richard Grayson before the doors close is, once again, someone who saved the world, but wishes he didn’t have to.

* * *

 

_(NOTES:_

_[1] Helena Bertinelli is a family friend of the Waynes, and Grayson’s editor at Spyral Publishing._

_[2] According to Grayson himself, Pennyworth is Wayne Manor’s devoted butler. Makes excellent chocolate chip cookies._

_[3] Roy Harper is an associate of Oliver Queen [4]. He would go on to pilot Tigress Hunter with Artemis Crock [8] until the closure of the breach, and is currently married to Crock’s sister Jade. They have a daughter, Lian._

_[4] Oliver Queen is currently CEO of Queen Conglomerate and was one of the Jaeger Program’s biggest benefactors while it was operational due to personal ties with several of its officers._

_[5] Donna Troy is Marshall Diana Prince’s younger sister. Troy famously quit the PPDC after a falling-out with her sister, and currently works in fitness._

_[6] Jason Todd piloted Red Oracle with Barbara Gordon until he retired following the battle with Lazarus, citing trauma._

_[7] John Jones and his niece Megan [11] were the only psych analysts to stay with the Jaeger Program until its end. They now run a clinic, Jones & Morse._

_[8] Younger cousin to Marshall Clark Kent, Conner became a Fightmaster after graduating from the program. He married Cassandra Sandsmark [20] after Operation Pitfall._

_[9] Artemis Crock piloted Tigress Amazon alongside Roy Harper, and was recruited by Oliver Queen. She and Wallace West were in a high-profile relationship before his death._

_[10] Zatanna Zatara would go on to become one of the leading communications officers in the program. She now follows in her father’s footsteps as a stage magician._

_[11] Jackson Hyde was a pupil of famous naval captain Arthur Curry before joining the PPDC. He piloted Poseidonis alongside Garth and Tula Atlantea before Tula’s death and Garth’s subsequent retirement. Poseidonis was later refitted for two pilots and Hyde became copilots with Logan Neptune. The two of them also participated in Operation Pitfall._

_[12] Megan Morse is niece to John Jones who followed in his footsteps as a psych analyst with the Jaeger Program. She is now a licensed psychiatrist alongside him, but maintains an interest in wildlife zoology._

_[13] Bart Allen, grandson of renowned military maverick Barry Allen, became a member of J-Tech. Notably, the primary person who designed Scarab Amazon._

_[14] Dinah Lance served as Fightmaster with the PPDC for years, and continued to teach martial arts after the war ended._

_[15] Nathaniel Adams was an ex-captain in the armed forces before transferring to the PPDC. Along with Lance, he was one of the Marshalls’ inner circle._

_[16] Jaime Reyes piloted Scarab Amazon alongside Cassandra Sandsmark from his graduation to the closure of the Breach. He was the only pilot involved in Operation Pitfall not to survive._

_[17] Tim Drake was another ward of Bruce Wayne. He eventually became a high-ranking member of J-Tech._

_[18] Garfield Logan is the son of prominent wildlife zoologist Marie Logan and cousin to Megan Morse. He was one of the Kaiju biologists and his discoveries were instrumental in Pitfall’s success. Currently, he has returned to Africa to continue his mother’s studies._

_[19] Karen Beecher was another of the scientists involved in the Kaiju War. She is currently resuming her doctorate under the advisory of Ryan Choi._

_[20] Cassandra Sandsmark piloted Scarab Amazon with Jaime Reyes and was instrumental in the closure of the breach. After Operation Pitfall, she married ex-Fightmaster Conner Kent. She passed away of cancer last Friday, April 5, 2030._

_C. KELLEY is a freelance journalist known for her unique interviews, which have appeared in the Gotham City Herald, Metropolis Daily, Star City News, and the Keystone Times. You may contact her at ckelley@robins.com._

**Author's Note:**

> So. There was a lot of AU transition that didn't make it into "pull the blackout curtains down," and I know I couldn't possibly write something about all of them, so I wrote this instead. Dick's one of my favorite side characters from the original AU fic, and I wanted to give him a bit more.


End file.
